Unshelving Your Collection Idea - Summer Scares Adult TItles

 Horror, like every genre, is read all year. Summer Scares is a joint reading program between the Horror Writers Association, Booklist, iREAD, NoveList, and Book Riot. It is focused on encouraging people to read more horror. Three titles in three categories (adult, young adult, and middle grade) are selected as well as a spokesperson. For 2025, the spokesperson is Kendare Blake. The selections are always backlist titles and include a diverse selections of authors and levels of scare.

The three adult titles this year are:

• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca (Titan Books, 2022)
• Reprieve by James Han Mattson (William Morrow, 2021)
• The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager, 2019)

The young adult titles this year are: 

• Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist (Greenwillow, 2018)
• The Getaway by Lamar Giles (Scholastic Press, 2022)
• Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen, 2023)

The three middle grade titles this year are: 

• Eerie Tales from the School of Screams by Graham Annable (First Second, 2022)
• Ravenous Things by Derrick Chow (Disney Hyperion, 2022)
• Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon (Scholastic Press, 2020)

 It is also a great book display idea to include in your summer book display schedule. Booklist hosted three webinars with the three authors in conversation with a moderator. They are free to view so you can recommend them to your co-workers. You can view the adult author webinar here, on Booklist's YouTube channel.

You can use this year's titles as well as those from previous years on a book display, of course. Add other books by those authors as well. If you have any horror short story anthologies, you add them as well. 

One of my favorite parts of these interviews with the authors selected for any given year is hearing the reading suggestions of the authors. People love reading suggestions from celebrities and authors. If you watch the video, you can hear these suggestions: 

The Dumb House - John Burnside

The End of Alice - A.M. Homes
Horror Movie - Paul Tremblay

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Hotel World - Ali Smith
In My Time of Dying - Sebasitan Junger
Dublin Murder Squad series - Tana French
Crushing Snails - Emma E. Murray

The Bone Mother - David Demchuk
Dead Collections - Isaac Fellman
Tripping Arcadia - Kit Mayquist

Authors: Hailey Piper, Gretchen Felker Martin, Joe Koch, Cina Pelayo, Christopher Buehlman,  Paula D. Ashe

This is a great list of authors and books to use to create a display! 

All the information and links related to Summer Scares is on Becky Spratford's blog, RA for All: Horror. 

The videos with the young adult authors is here and the middle grade video is here. 

Unshelve your collection - Finished Series

 I received Book Riot's newsletter for romance called Kissing Books yesterday. The primary topic was about different romantasy series. There was a subheading that I thought would be a great theme for a book display:  Finished Romantasy Series to Consume Immediately. This is a way to bring attention to some of those series that your readers may have missed. 

There are readers who would rather not endure the stretch of time between novels or even whether or not a series will be completed. Remember that part of the reason to have a lot of different kinds of displays is to capture all kinds of readers. 

You can obviously expand beyond romantasy. This is a fun project for anyone on staff who is a fan of a particular genre. Expand the search to include your eBooks collection. It can also be paired with a display of new series . You can create a sign with a message like "Get on board now!" I find that setting up contrasting displays is a fun way to reach more people and to showcase more titles. 

Don't forget to mirror the display with young adult and juvenile titles so that younger readers are not left behind. 

Here are some lists to get you started: 

Goodreads - Completed Series

Epic Reads - 40 Completed Book Series to Binge Guaranteed to Keep You Reading

My Heart is Booked - Must Read Completed Series

Owl Crate - Six Best Completed Romantasy Series For When You Need The Next Book

Unshelve Your Collection Idea: Book Club Picks.

A great choice for a fill-in book display or when your bucket of ideas has run low is to see what the various book clubs have chosen. Fortunately, Publishers Weekly has a list of more book club choices than one could imagine. 

You can check this page monthly and focus on a different book club each month. There are options beyond celebrities and booksellers like-

Black Men Read

The Jewish Book Council

Mocha Girls Read

Sapph-Lit

Subtle Asian Book Club

Good Morning America YA Book Club

Eclectix Book Club

Don't forget to include the book clubs at your library as well as your local independent booksellers!